Referee starts kickboxing fight during soccer match

Saad Al Fadhi, referee for the Kuwaiti Premier League, wasn’t having any of it. When multiple players of Al Naser SC tried to attack him late in a game against perennial champion Al Arabi, he responded with his fists and his foot, and, of course, his most powerful weapon — lots of red cards.

The spontaneous bout began very late in the match. Al Naser was up 1-0 on its home pitch, when Al Fadhi awarded Al Arabi with a penalty in stoppage time. Then, all hell broke loose: Players shoving and pulling the official back and forth, the referee himself slapping one player in the face, only to follow it up with a high volley at the same player’s thigh. Sideline officials helped by Al Naser goalie Mohammad Al Salal tried to separate the huddle — without much success.

More craziness ensued. After Al Arabi had scored the penalty, another Al Naser player kicked the ball at the ref’s head. Four red cards were handed out in total, and even though the score at that point should have been 1-1, international soccer association FIFA’s website shows an official result of 4-1 for Al Arabi. The website futbol24.com shows the same result, but denotes a time for each goal scored by Al Arabi, though there is no note of who might have scored them. While we don’t know how everything went down, one thing is sure: Thursday, Kuwait soccer made for an entertaining video. Although the most interesting part was the kickboxing.